Charlie Musselwhite

Considered among the greatest harmonica players of all time, Charlie Musselwhite's upbringing in Mississippi and Memphis was steeped in the blues. It wasn't until moving to Chicago in the early '60s, however, that he considered a career in music. There the 18-year-old harper soon found himself sitting in alongside his heroes. "I would go and see [Howlin'] Wolf or Muddy Waters or Little Walter, and these guys were knocked out that anybody my age came to see them," laughs Musselwhite, now 63. "Not only that, but it was interesting to them that I was white and was familiar with their music and liked it." More than 30 albums later, Musselwhite is renowned for his influence on the '60s blues resurgence, as well as a stylistic range that fuses jazz, country and exotic world rhythms. With 2006's Delta Hardware, Musselwhite returned to the comfort of his rural Southern roots. "Blues was just always part of my environment," he says. "I was kind of a lonely kid, no brothers and sisters. My dad had left when I was about four, and my mom was gone all the time working. But I'd hear that music, and it was just like a comforter. It sounded like how I felt."